Attracting and Retaining Talent Best-Practice Strategies

NIGEL PAInE

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In ASSOCIATIOn WITH

Attracting and Retaining Talent Best-Practice Strategies

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Attracting and Retaining Talent Best-Practice Strategies

NIGEL PAInE

PUBLISHED BY

In ASSOCIATIOn WITH

Contents
Executive summary. ............................................................................................................. V About the author...............................................................................................................VII Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................IX Part One: Talent and Performance Management in the Organisation Best Practice Chapter 1: Introduction and context.................................................................................... 3 Where are we now?............................................................................................................... 3 The talent context.................................................................................................................. 6 The broader picture Not just business................................................................................... 7 Towards a theory of talent...................................................................................................... 8 What are the components of a talent management strategy?.................................................... 9 Chapter 2: Expert views.................................................................................................... 13 Expert view one (UK) The direct impact of a talent strategy on the bottom line....................... 13 Expert view two (Australia) What can elite sport teach us?.................................................... 15 The six talents that give elite sports performers the edge......................................................... 16 Lessons from head coaches.................................................................................................. 20 Expert view three (Brazil) Fitting talent into the wider economic context.................................. 24 Chapter 3: The evolution of talent management............................................................... 29 The changing face of HR. ..................................................................................................... 29 Staff as heroes. .................................................................................................................... 30 The Cappelli analysis........................................................................................................... 31 Meaning at work................................................................................................................. 35 No model wins.................................................................................................................... 37 ................................................................... 41 Chapter 4: The dimensions of bench strength. The case of the British Army. ................................................................................................. 41 The traditional means of retaining staff.................................................................................. 43 Chapter 5: Towards a learning organisation...................................................................... 47 Great workplaces and great talent management.................................................................... 47 The link with learning........................................................................................................... 48

III

Contents

Chapter 6: Building a talent management strategy. ........................................................... 53 Part Two: Case Studies Case study 1: Carey Olsen HR as a business driver........................................................ 59 ................................................... 63 Case study 2: Pegasystems A growth engine for talent. Case study 3: Large US government agency Embedding talent....................................... 67 ............... 71 Case study 4: Royal Mail Group Ltd Change driven by a strong talent agenda. ................................................ 73 Case study 5: Thomson Reuters One size does not fit all. Case study 6: XL Group plc Ensuring the talent strategy is at the core of the future business strategy. .................................................................................................... 79 Case study 7: A European service company Attention to the fundamentals..................... 83 Case study 8: The BNY Mellon Asset Management Performance consulting as a way of working with the business............................................................................................. 87 Index................................................................................................................................ 91

IV

Executive summary
ThIs rePOrt examines best-practice strategies in attracting and retaining talent and shows how successful organisations are approaching the task of recruiting, retaining and developing their staff. It does not matter if you are a government agency in the US or a construction conglomerate in Brazil, how you get the best out of the people you employ is a key and common issue to all organisations. This report highlights the way employment has been organised and staff have been managed for decades, which is simply not effective in an increasingly globalised and fast-moving economy. A brilliant recruit let loose in a controlling culture, where no one really cares about this persons comfort let alone development is likely to be totally ineffective two years down the track (assuming they are still around). Chris Hoyt, the talent engagement and marketing leader at PepsiCo summarises how far successful companies have moved in their attitude to staff acquisition and retention at a recent SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas: There is a challenge to find top talent especially for larger companies. Now it is much less about here's a job so give me your resume. As the work space is evolving, so is the approach to recruiting. It is much more about engagement, not just who has the skill sets. It is about who has the passion to drive through and achieve all the things that are possible in that space. Who is really excited and savvy and who lives and breaths it? It really is about how we can engage and follow up with potential staff. It is about asking top talent what they expect from a top employer and how we can better engage and follow up with them. Lack of attention to the whole talent process leads, inevitably, to rapid staff turnover. That kind of attrition is hugely expensive both in terms of the cost of recruiting and the loss of knowledge. High rates of attrition bring about inefficiency in an organisation, as well as discontinuity and poor customer relations. Some companies respond by speeding up the process of onboarding and minimising the investment in their new recruits as they assume that they will leave in a relatively short period. But the best companies make huge efforts to get the talent equation right by building motivated and respected cadres of staff who care because they believe that their employer cares; and they go out of their way to do great things for the company, because their employer recognises and rewards their contribution. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula that you can apply to instantly create this type of high-performance environment. It is a long-term commitment, not a quick fix. This report illustrates through a range of case studies from the UK, Brazil, the US, Europe and Australia that change is possible, and substantial benefits will accrue to those organisations prepared to grasp the nettle. This report contains ideas and different approaches which may or may

Executive summary

not work in your circumstances. This report clearly demonstrates that there is no one model approach, but it does show that an effective talent strategy is powerful and transformational. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the history of talent management and its evolution over the last ten years or more. It looks at the basic components which are common to many talent strategy approaches. Chapter 2 examines, in detail, the views of three experts a career counsellor provides his view on what it takes for an organisation to nurture talent; a knowledge management expert discusses applying the logic of elite sports development to talent development inside businesses; and the CEO of a company that delivers talent services to Brazils fastest-growing companies reveals how he is assisting these organisations in managing the growing talent issues. Chapter 3 discusses how talent management and HR have evolved to cope with changes in the nature of work and the structure of companies. It shows that different companies have employed different techniques to recognise the contribution of their employees, and it sets all this in the context of a number of key publications on work and talent by Peter Cappelli, Stephen Overell and Larry Israelite. Chapter 4 looks at a particular case study the British Army and how it has adopted a particular performance and talent framework to manage the performance of its fighting force. It shows that only focusing on stars in an organisation will not necessarily build top performance and that buying top talent is not a consistent guarantee for sustained higher levels of performance. Chapter 5 looks at what makes workplaces great and the critical role

that continuous learning plays as a core component in effective talent management. Chapter 6 summarises the key lessons that emerge from the case studies in this report and sets out the questions you must answer to build your own strategy and action plan. The aim of this chapter is to help readers work out their own priorities for moving forward. Part Two features case studies from successful global organisations which share the talent strategies they have used to attract and retain key talent, and manage performance.

VI

About the author

NIgel PaIne is a change-focused leader with a worldwide reputation and a unique grasp of media, learning and development in the public, private and academic sectors. He has extensive experience in leadership and consultancy with public service broadcasters, SMEs, global industry players, government and education institutions. His consultancy focuses on the use of learning technologies, organisational development, leadership and creativity with a spotlight on maximising human potential, innovation and performance in the workplace. Nigel is a strategic thinker, able to motivate, lead and drive organisations forward to deliver business and training objectives. Nigel was appointed in April 2002 to head up the BBCs training and development operation, where he built one of the most successful learning and development operations in the UK. This included an award-winning leadership programme, state-of-the-art informal learning, e-learning and knowledge sharing, and one of the most outstanding and well-used intranets in the corporate sector. Nigel left the BBC in September 2006 to start his own company, which focuses on leadership, creativity, innovation and e-learning. He works with companies in Europe, Brazil, Australia and the US in this capacity. At Elliott Masies Learning 2006 conference in Florida, he was awarded the title of 2006 Learning Thought Leader. He is now a Masie Learning fellow. He is an academic director and member of the international advisory board at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on a learning leaders doctoral programme. Nigel is a board member of Management Issues which is an international outline expert forum. He was part-time chief executive of the Broadcast, Training and Skills Regulator during 2006/2007, where he introduced media sector training awards and produced a definitive state of training report in that industry. Nigel has written articles and white papers published on subjects as diverse as Creativity in the Workplace, Building Corporate Heroes and The Future of E-Learning. Nigel can be contacted at: nigel@nigelpaine.com For more information on his work, visit: http://www.nigelpaine.com

VII

Acknowledgements
MY grateful thanks go to a large number of people who talked to me about talent, and shared their insights and their strategies: Simon Nash from Carey Olsen; Amy Provost from Pegasystems; John Duncan from Royal Mail Group Ltd; Keith Dunbar, a great learning leader; Stephen Dando and Dimitra Manis from Thomson Reuters; Jean Larkin from XL Group plc; Karen Partridge senior OD consultant; Dave DeFilippo from BNY Mellon Asset Management; Mauricio Wendling Lopes from MindQuest Educao S.A.; Dr. Bryan Watters from the Defence Academy at Cranfield University; Milana Hogan from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Douglas Clayton from SES Engineering; John D. Lake from JD Lake Communications LLC; Duncan Bolam from Career Dovetail Ltd; and Richard Cross from Second Wave Solutions Ltd. Without them, this would have been a much thinner report in every sense of the word. Additionally, two people inspired my interest in this whole subject and confirmed my belief that it is very important. They are Professor Peter Cappelli of the Wharton Business School, who is a world expert on the subject, and Larry Israelite, who lives a talent philosophy every working day at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. Finally, I would like to thank Evie Serventi for her assiduous advice, great support and neverending patience and Stephanie Ramasamy for her judicious editing, both at Ark Conferences Ltd. And finally, Erina Rayner who tackled my grammar and logic with fortitude and serenity.

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